In modern laboratories across the globe, fully or at least partially automated laboratory apparatuses or fluid handling systems are becoming more and more frequent. Compared to manually controlled systems, automated systems enable researchers and laboratory staff to free up time to perform more high value work and/or tasks that cannot be automated. Moreover in many situations, automated control improves process control and provides more consistent quality output. Examples of frequently used fluid handling systems includes: liquid chromatography systems, filtration systems, biomolecular synthesis systems, optical or electrochemical sensor or imaging systems, biosensor systems or the like for analysis or preparation of samples. One common feature for such systems is that samples to be analyzed or otherwise processed are provided in or in contact with a fluid flow path during operation of the system and the flow of fluid in the flow path can be precisely controlled in an automated manner. During some phases of operation of such systems a disruption of the operation may be fatal in that the analysis results or process results may become unreliable and invalid, further the sample may be destroyed or in other ways lost.
Power failure is a common problem in many countries, even in laboratory environments, and may thus cause serious disruptions of the operation of automated fluid handling systems as mentioned above. For example, in chromatography, if the power fails during the run, the injected sample may be lost and the entire run may have to be restarted which will lead to sample loss and time loss. Further, the system throughput is reduced due to the need to restart the process.